


Life In Freedom Volume 1

by QueenKittenWriter



Series: Life In Freedom [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, Adventure, Blood and Injury, Drinking, Eventual Romance, Isekai, Multi, Mythology - Freeform, POV First Person, Politics, Racism, Romance, Slow Build, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:06:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24923569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenKittenWriter/pseuds/QueenKittenWriter
Summary: What if you created a game?Not just any game, but a game that allowed the player to do anything.Wanted to be the Hero? Sure! Want to be the Demon Lord? Hell yeah! Want to ignore all that and be a simple farmer? Ready The Shovel!Whatever the player wanted to do, the game would allow them to do it. There were no limits, the world was a playground! It was a world with...Freedom.It took me sixty years to devlop the game, but it was time...It was time to finally release it to the world and give people a game they always wanted!I just wish that I wasn't killed right before the launch.I expected to wake up at either the gates of Heaven Or Hell...I didn't care, as long as my game somehow made it to the public.However I wasn't expecting this.To wake up in the world...Of Freedom.
Series: Life In Freedom [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803676
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Life In Freedom Volume 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a bit of a project, or a Bucket List thing I guess you can say. I've always wanted to just write my own story that wasn't fanfiction or had any prexisting world to go off of, and well this is it. The story is about a game designer who has been working on his game for sixty years is finally ready to release it to the public, only to be killed right before launch. When he awakens, he sees that he has woken up in the very game he created.
> 
> It's a bit of an overused concept, but I hope it's creative enough to be different.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy, and be sure to leave a comment!
> 
> Thanks.

The sound of harsh rain could be heard pelting the tin roof overhead as my tired fingers typed as fast as they could, the years of work having worn away as my once otherworldly speed had been reduced to nothing more than a secretary writing down notes her boss had given her for the day.

Usually in the event of a storm, I would stop until it passed by, so to avoid the event where the storm would cut the power off and lose my work from the day. Even with uploading to the Cloud every minute, there was always the chance something could happen.

Tonight was different however.

Tonight was the night that I would finish the RPG I had been working on for almost my entire Life.

Freedom.

Ever since I was a child, I had been enamored with Open World RPGs where the player could do whatever they wished. The idea of not having a set path, where you could go on your own adventure and ignore the set path the world wanted you to go on. From the famous Gray Beard Scrolls that seemed to get re-released on everything, even to this day. To the world renowned Cough of the Forest.

I played them as much as I could, whether it be home on my Computer, or to school and work with my portable device. My life was nothing special, so engaging on fantasy adventures was something I always wanted to do every chance I got.

However, the more I played, the more I realized the flaws with the genre.

Despite the innovations and improvements that many developers brought to the genre, it seemed that there were in fact restrictions with this type of genre. For one, the worlds, no matter how large they were, still had an end to them. For example, if the player went to the first town and just traveled North, avoiding all obstacles and monsters and such, they would still eventually reach an endpoint. Usually the end points would be blocked off with unclimbable mountains, a large body of water that would forcefully turn you around, or in more lazy cases, an invisible wall.

Now it's true some auto generated games like Blockcraft would just keep generating and generating, never truly having an end, however those games usually had little to no story and the point of the game was just to fight monsters and survive.

Secondly, many Open World games didn't do much to remember your past decisions, other than something like a good or evil gauge, or a faction affiliation rank. While these would impact how NPC's and factions would treat you, they usually didn't have much more to them than that. In fact, if you reversed your gauge or got a new faction rank, then almost nobody would bring up they used to like you or hate you, but now are the opposite of that.

Finally, perhaps the most egregious error many Open World Games had, was simply the fact that they truly weren't Open World to begin with. While they had a wide world you could explore to your heart's content and do whatever you may wish, the fact of the matter was that you were still limited to the quests that the programmers had implemented into the game.

Wanted to join the Kingdoms army? Well unless there was a quest that allowed you to do so, you were out of luck. Wanted to marry the Queen and become King of the Kingdom? Again, unless a quest or event was associated with something like that, you were out of luck. While it's true mods could add things and the like to the PC versions of games, over half of the mods were buggy or incomplete and for many people, the mods they wanted simply didn't exist.

That would all change with my new game Freedom.

However, I've rambled on enough without introducing myself.

My name is Julian Mellows, an eighty year old programmer who has spent the past sixty years of my life working on Freedom.

Yes, sixty years.

What I thought would be nothing more than a project that lasted a few years, turned into a project I dedicated my life to. Originally I had created a small game where the player could be any race they wanted and join a Kingdom and live a life they wanted to live. They could be an army soldier, a merchant, cook, parent, anything…

However the more I wrote, the more ideas I had and soon I had figured that trying to write individual quests and the like went against the entire idea of Freedom. So soon I dedicated my time to writing an AI program so complex and world so large, that the player could literally do whatever they wanted.

The program would generate the world and Kingdom to mold and shapeshift to whatever the player wanted and would never be the same, even if the player went back and did the exact same things. The game would account for every single thing, so the player could do whatever they wanted from becoming an Hero that would defeat the Overlord, to even being the Overlord themselves. They had the freedom to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

The code I had written was millions, if not billions, of lines long to account for every little thing the player could do.

After Sixty Years, I had finally done it. I was almost done with the final few lines of code, and if my calculations were correct, they would be the final few lines that would be needed for the game to fully be complete.

All the years...All the Friends and Family I've lost...All the Game Engines I had to go through before finally having to code my own...It would all finally be worth it. Even if I may not get to enjoy the game to its fullest because of my age, the next generation of gamers would get to experience what a true Open World game is all about!

Not only that, but my game would push the game industry far into the future! No longer would gamers settle another re-release of Gray Beard Scrolls! They would demand that all games be as open and free reign as Freedom!

As I typed the last line of code, my fingers twitched and shook as I inserted the last bracket and hit enter…

It was done…

After years upon years of work…

It was done…

My old body shook as I fell to my knees, tears forming in my eyes as I pressed my bald head against the desk as tears dropped to the floor. "I did it! I Finally Did it!"

I yelled at the top of my lungs, despite my throat trying to stop me from how dry it was, as I stayed slumped.

As my ragged breathing was drowned out by the rain outside, I slowly began to push myself up as my hands reached for my VR Headset known as the Octopus Lift, as I began to pick it up. "Now...For the final...Playtest…"

My breathing still ragged as tears still rolled down my face, I placed the Headset onto my head, and moved my hand down to my mouse to start the game.

However, as soon the Headset was on my head, a loud bang of thunder could be heard outside as a stray bolt of lightning struck the powerline outside and shot through the cords, and soon the stray electricity shot through the plug on PC and travel through my headsets cord before striking me in the head.

"Aghhhh!" A burning sensation filled my head as I fell to my knees, my ears suddenly ringing as my ears and eyes were burning as my body shook. It felt like I had been thrown into a fire pit as pain shot through my body as I twitched, my hands not responding when I tried to move them up to take the headset off.

I could no longer hear or see, my ragged breathing slowing as my old body couldn't take the shock and pain, as soon blood came out of my mouth and dripped to the floor.

I laid still for a few moments, hoping the sensation would pass, but the more I waited the more and more feeling I lost in my body.

Soon, I could no longer even breath as my consciousness began to fade, and my body soon went limp as the last thing that ran through my mind….

Freedom.

* * *

My senses were gone and with the few thoughts I had, I was expecting to awake before either the Gates of Heaven or the Gates of Hell, whichever I was deemed most worthy for I thought. I would accept either one, my only wish being that Freedom would still make it out to the world and my life wouldn't be for nothing.

However my senses slowly returned, and soon I could feel my body lying on a cold surface. The sound of water dripping and rats scurrying about could be heard as my breathing slowly returned. The air was chilly and darkness surrounded me, even when I opened my eyes.

However, it didn't take long for me to feel around, as my hands landed on the gate in front of me and I soon used the gate to pull myself to the right side of the room, where a small lever was located.

Grabbing onto the lever, I gave a small tug as it easily pulled towards me as soon as cracking noise could be heard in the walls around, the sounds of chains soon began to fill the air as my mind slowly reformed itself over everything that happened.

Eventually the noise stopped, and not long after the room was illuminated by a light source above me. As soon as I saw the room, I was confused but not necessarily surprised due to the layout I knew thus far.

"This is...Freedom?" There was no mistaking it, I was inside the starting area of Freedom. I should know, I had the layout memorized from years upon years of playtests and the like. The darkness that shadowed me was meant as a way for the player to feel around and solve the first puzzle of the game(and only puzzle for some players depending on how their journey went.)

However I usually pulled the lever within moments of spawning in, yet it took me some time to even realize where I was. Even after having a faint suspicion due to the ambience and floor layout, I still wasn't quite sure.

Afterall, never before could I feel before in Freedom. This was the first time I was able to feel how cold and wet the floor was, and how my hands...Well...My entire body seemed to be shivering from the cold air.

That wasn't the only thing however, I could smell a mixture of stone, death, feces and other unpleasant things in the air as well. It fit the area I suppose, but again, smell was never a feature in the game, VR technology was nowhere near advanced for that.

Another thing was that the GUI or Hud that would usually display when I had the headset on wasn't showing. Usually I would be able to see my health and MP in the bottom left corner, and my weapons and ammo in the Bottom Right hand corner. The map would be displayed in the top right corner, and finally a compass on the very top of the Hud. Sure there were options to turn it all off, but doing so still showed the system tab in the top left corner so players could still access the main features if needed.

Yet none of that was here, I was looking around the room as If I was actually there.

Considering what had happened beforehand however, a part of me wanted to believe that very well may be the case.

It didn't help that people getting trapped in Video Games was a pretty popular genre of literature.

Still to think such a thing truly had happened was assinine to say the least, let alone trapped in a game I had created myself.

Then again, if I had truly been killed by the stray bolt of electricity, then it might be said to throw out all conventional forms of reality and wisdom.

Shaking my head, I held my hand out as I spoke "I installed a failsafe where, should all operations fail, the player can still access the Menu by holding out their hand and saying...Menu!"

As soon as I said, a screen actually did appear in front of my hand, and for just a moment I thought that I was truly in the game and the lightning was just playing tricks with my senses.

I quickly realized that not to be the case however, as the menu was severely limited compared to how it was supposed to be.

Only three tabs were present: 'Status' 'Skills' and 'Inventory.'

The default tab that had been opened was the Status screen, and I decided to take a quick glance at my stats and information.

**Name: Jules  
Race: Human  
Level: 1  
Age: 22  
Family: None  
Bounty: None  
Allies: None  
Enemies: None  
Factions: None  
Personal Skills: Language Master, Axe Master**

Well one might think this to be wrong and weird, however this was actually the character I had created to Beta Test the game with.

The Human race was the weakest race in the game and one of the things I strived for with Freedom was to make it to where players could beat every Boss they encounter at level One, so I always kept my character with these stats so to make sure that every boss that I added could be beaten, even with the weakest character possible.

As for the skills, the Language Master skill was to allow me to understand and interact with every single Race in the game without having to invest skill points into the language branch. Usually the only way to legit get the skill is to have a long family line that breeds with a few different species, but the power of Debug allowed me to bypass that.

As for the Axe Master skill, I was recently testing out the new axe I had added into the game that you get for beating one of the Hidden Mountain bosses. Since it was a high leveled axe, I equipped the Axe Master skill which allowed me to wield any axe without fail.

Switching over to the Skill tab, I saw a split screen with one side of the screen displaying my equipped skills, and the other side showing the skill tree.

**Equipped Skills  
-Personal Skills Are Always Equipped  
Magic: None  
Combat: Axe Master  
Culinary: None  
Survival: None  
Job: None  
Social: Language Master  
Alchemy: None  
Resistances: None**

**Skill Tree  
Skill Points Available To Spend: 10  
White Magic: 0/10  
Black Magic: 0/10  
Dark Magic: 0/10  
Swords: 0/10  
Bows: 0/10  
Spears: 0/10  
Axe: -/10(Unavailable Due To Personal Skill)  
Culinary: 0/10  
Survival: 0/10  
Job: N/A(Unavailable, Must Obtain Job First)  
Language: -/10(Unavailable Due To Personal Skill)  
Bartering: 0/10  
Silver Tongue: 0/10  
Alchemy: 0/10**

Everything looked normal here as well, in terms of the gameplay system I had created after all. Giving a quick swipe up, the screen changed as I expected my 'Equipped Skills" Screen changed to my "UnEquipped Skills" Screen.

**UnEquipped Skills  
Combat: Zero EXP**

The Zero EXP Skill was a skill that everybody, regardless of what kind of character they created, would have at the very start of the game. It did as the name implied as it kept the player from gaining Experience and would be the base for a Level One playthrough. It did come with a few benefits however if you stayed only at level one, such as not being able to die in one hit and also an extra skill point at the start, and an extra skill point for all future skill points achieved.

To earn Skill Points, you could either obtain them from leveling up, where every 5 level ups would increase your skill points by two, or by finding a skill book which would give you one extra skill point.

Anyway I had no reason to use the Zero EXP Skill right now, especially with the fact that I seemed to have been transported into my very own game, so I swiped back up to go back to the Equipped Skill Screen, before swiping Right again to go to the Inventory Tab.

**Inventory  
Bronze Axe x1  
HP Restoration Potion x3  
Leather Helmet(Equipped) x1  
Leather Torso(Equipped) x1  
Leather Pants(Equipped) x1**

Again nothing surprising, the regular Leather armor that a player would usually begin with was present, along with the Restoration Potions and the weapon of choice(Though if the player wished, they could have a spell available from the start instead of a weapon.)

There wasn't much else on the Inventory screen, so my eyes scanned the top of the screen and the only thing that caught my eye was the location.

"Location...Prison Of The Damned."

Wondering if it worked like it was supposed to, I clicked on it with my finger and sure enough it brought up a screen showing basic information.

**Prison Of The Damned  
Monsters: Rats, Mutated Rats, Bats, Zombies  
Treasure Chests: 1  
Bosses: Warden, Gatekeeper  
Recommended Level: 1**

Again everything checked out as it should and nothing seemed off, even the two bosses that were present were the same.

I checked around the menu a bit more but I couldn't find anything else out of the ordinary and such, so I closed the menu and gave a sigh as my hand reached for my side but nothing was present. I was confused for a moment as that should have been where my weapon was, but then I remembered the Axe was on the back of the player.

Reached behind, I felt a wooden handle and grabbed it as I pulled, revealing it to be the Bronze Axe as I held it in my hand. It surprisingly didn't have any weight to it, though I suppose I could thank my Axe Master skill for that.

Giving a swing, a small whoosh could be heard when I swung but nothing more. I also tapped the axe against the ground and the walls all around me, which caused a clanging sound to be heard but again nothing was out of the ordinary.

"Well, guess I shouldn't be surprised." Giving a sigh, I ran my hand across the bars in front of me as it was obvious I could push through them to the other side. "I have so many questions, chief among them how I was transported into my own game, but standing around here won't do any good."

Shaking my head and giving a sigh, I opened up the menu one more time and went to the Skill Tree to allocate the Skill Points I started with.

**White Magic: 3/10  
Black Magic: 3/10  
Silver Tongue: 4/10**

**New Skills Learned  
Magic: Heal, Fire**

My first priority was to learn basic White Magic and Black Magic so I could learn Heal and Fire, the most basic Magic in the game for their respective categories. I then placed the rest of my points in Silver Tongue, which would help me if I ran into any NPC's.

Grabbing my Axe with both hands again, I gave a few more practice swings before I felt confident in my abilities as I turned towards the bars and kicked them with my foot, breaking them easily and leading me into the dark hallway that connected all the jail cells together.

However, as soon as the sound of the bars hitting the floor radiated throughout the hallway, I heard small steps from both sides before two rats jumped towards me to attack.

Reacting instinctively, I grabbed my axe with one hand and struck at the rat coming from my right, killing the small creature on contact as it was flung across and hit the other side of the hallway.

Not stopping my motion, I did a full circle as the backhand of the axe struck the other rat and sent it flying towards the opposite side as it died on contact.

After doing a full 360, I stopped as I examined myself. I wasn't out of breath or feeling dizzy, and swinging the axe around felt extremely easy. I can likely thank the Axe Master skill for that, though I wondered if the skill also assisted with not running out of breath...Dizziness was a spell that could be used, so perhaps I would be fine unless afflicted?

Well I could worry about that later.

Readying my axe in my right hand, I lifted up my left hand as I closed my eyes. Usually one could just open the menu, or even the shortcut list, and use their spells that way. However that was no longer present, even among the menu's I could still access.

Keeping my eyes closed, I allowed my mind to clear as I took a deep breath and focused on my left hand as I imagined a flame appearing in it. As if pressing the shortcut key itself, I suddenly heard the air whistling by before a warmth spread on my body.

Opening my eyes up, I saw the flame had indeed appeared in my hand and was illuminating the area around me. I could feel the heat, yet it didn't burn despite the fact it was resting in my hand. Again I supposed it made sense from a game perspective, but it was still a weird and surreal experience all the same.

Well no need to overthink it, for now I had to escape from the Prison.

I had two pathways readily available to me.

I could go right which would eventually take me to the 'Gate Of The Valkyrie' which lead towards the 'Bridge of Light'. Crossing the bridge would eventually take me towards the Hobgoblins villages and the like. However, the Gate was guarded by the 'Gatekeeper', a boss that was weak to magic and very slow, however he would deal punishment easily and strong physical defense.

The other option was to go Left, eventually taking me towards the 'Rite Of Passage' that led to the villages of many human and beast ken descendents. The Passage was guarded by the 'Warden' who was the opposite of the Gatekeeper in that he was very fast and strong against magic, yet he didn't hit very hard and physical attacks could take him down quick.

They, along with the prison, were among the first things I had coded and worked on when I started this year's long project, so the area is a bit more linear than I would like.

To mitigate this, I added a third but rare option.

The option to randomly have the player attacked by a Cyclops when they exit from their jail cell, which would destroy the wall in front of them, allowing the player to kill the Cyclops and then begin their adventure while completely ignoring the prison.

This would be beneficial to the Player, as the Cyclops would give out the most exp and also a really good early game weapon.

However, because I was attacked by two rats when exiting the cell, it meant the Cyclops event didn't trigger and I would have to choose one of the two paths…

Or so the player would think.

Even if the random Cyclops doesn't attack you right at the start, it is possible to summon a Cyclops Prince that would destroy the middle wall. Though stronger than the random cyclops, the Cyclops Prince gave out more exp and better equipment, plus a choice between a language scroll that allowed you to instantly learn a new language, or a race scroll that allowed you to become a mixed breed.

However the only way to summon the Cyclops Prince was to not only kill both the Warden and Gatekeeper, but also find the secret Goblin Horn that was found in a secret chest. A chest that I knew the location of easily.

Looking at the facts, summoning the Cyclops Prince was my best option.

Not only would I gain a good amount of experience from killing three bosses, but I would also acquire a scroll that at the very least I could sell and also good loot that could replace my armor or even give me a bow or shield.

The downside was that I was Level One with limited healing properties, and only three potions could be found inside of the prison.

Still, I had worked on Freedom for over Sixty Years.

I knew every detail, every technique, every weapon, every weakness, everything! I knew it all! If anybody could kill three bosses and gain the early game loot.

It was me.

Setting up my resolve, I turned towards the Right Hallway since the location of the Horn was also down this path, as I began walking with Fire and Axe in hand.

The first steps….

Towards Freedom.


End file.
